Eating Crow ...

Edgar, in fact, or so I'm told. But I shall call him Edgar Allen Crow for short, and because it's more fun. In case you're wondering, Edgar is a juvenile crow, doubtless a rejeton from the flock that seem to inhabit the church, and thanks to an unfortunate childhood now believes that he's a person. He first came to our attention when he hopped up onto the balcony and sat there disconsolately until a young woman came to the door to ask if we'd seen Edgar (and this is how I know his name), at which point I picked him up and carried him out to her.

Sadly, he took this as a sign of affection, and has appeared every evening since. Not actually quothing anything, but he can be a bloody nuisance. He likes to eat and drink (maybe that's just because wine glasses are shiny! sparkly!) as he walks about on the table, and to perch on your shoulder and go to sleep. Which is all very well, cute and all that, but he tends to get a bit irritated when you decide that it's time to go to bed, and that crows do not form part of your sleeping arrangements. Also, he craps down your back occasionally, very charming but not so good if you don't notice at the time and wear the same shirt the next day to a client meeting.

Whilst I think of it, may I suggest that you not use my personal e-mail until I let you know? We are still waiting for the miracles of the intartoobz to arrive here at the Shamblings, and you can probably imagine my delight when I got a mail last night from Orange to tell me that, contrary to what I had organised, hoped, and believed, my old e-mail account had been cancelled along with the phone line.

Then, when I arrived home this moaning, after a delightful five-hour drive floating along down the middle of a steaming sewer of tourists, I found a number of letters from Orange awaiting my attention: one of them informing me of the resiliation total of my old accounts, another welcoming me to the serried ranks of Orange users along with my new access codes and e-mail address, and a third advising me of the availability of a charming young woman named Julia, and would I like to install Orange Anti-Virus?

So I spent ten minutes on hold, and twenty minutes fulminating, with someone who may, for all I know, have been Julia, who gave me some hope that once the actual cable guy comes round and connects the phone that just maybe I might be able to get in touch with tech support and that they could perhaps be willing to give me back my old address, with a wave of their magic wands. Who knows, could work. And the fact that they were actually answering the support lines on a Saturday afternoon has to be a good sign, no?

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself here. If you are reading this you are probably aware that we successfully dumped, over the course of a week, a goodly percentage of our affairs here - although for reasons unknown, some of the essential stuff, like my saucière, seems still to be lurking in Sue's Garage back in St Pierre - and that we duly managed to turn up for the fête de village on Saturday night.

But then on Sunday I headed back up to Chambéry for a week's work, tidying my desk and stuff like that, cloning my work machines and wrapping up a few other details: not that that's anywhere near finished mind you, as witness my experience with Orange. At least the insurance and EDF went smoothly.

And then I dragged myself from sleep at 4am the following Saturday, clicked my talons once or twice around some coffee until I felt more or less human, and drove back down, hoping to miss a) the rush, and b) the heat. And that time, apart from a sticky moment at the northern Montpellier péage, it actually worked. Bloody miracle.

I had most of a week at what I'm starting to learn to call home, and our friends Janet and Kevin turned up from Italy in their camper-van, which made a good occasion to baptise the brand-new barbecue. Margo had gone off and bought the biggest cast-iron one she could find: nowhere near as big as the one we had in the garden, but should be enough for at least a leg of lamb. Suppose I shall find out tonight, as we are supposed to be having an English couple round for dinner, and I just happen to have a bit of NZ lamb waiting to be butterflied ... there's also some mascarpone and some rather tired strawberries in the fridge which would like to become dessert, and as we went out this morning to stock up on Chateau Carton I couldn't help but buy a jar of gelée de romarin, for which I shall have to find a use. Smells bloody wonderful, anyway. Concentrated rosemary.

Also took the time to wander about a bit - not that difficult, Moux is not exactly what you could call a sprawling metropolis - and stumbled into Chateau Mansenoble. Run by a charming couple of Belgians who came here some twenty years ago, and who very generously insisted on my tasting a bit of everything. I am not, as a general rule, one to go on about bouquets and the nose and all that sort of thing - mainly because I know sod-all about it - but I can honestly say that the 2010 had a wonderful smell of blackberries and figs. On the other hand the 2008, aged in wood, was still fermé and a bit too tannic for my taste - if ever I get some I shall have to put it away for a few more years.

There's also the Cave Cooperative de Moux, which makes an excellent plonk in red, white and rosé - that's what was dished out so liberally at dinner the other night. Not the same standard - nor the same price either - and personally I think it's a shame to be drinking red wine at this time of year, but the white and the rosé are perfectly passable.

So once James has worked his magic and we have our chambres d'hôte up and running, we shall at least be able to supply those of you that decide to come and visit with some decent local wine.

Whatever, had to head back to Chambéry on Thursday for a client meeting at Miqro: much to my deception the actual client wasn't present as everything was done by conference call, so I could easily have participated from here. Never mind, gave me Friday to go off to Lyon and see another client, and then to load little Suzy as full as I could of stuff from Sue's (including one huge box enticingly labelled "kitchen", but in which I did not, sadly, find my other saucepans) before driving back Saturday morning.

Which is where you came in.

Another fête last night - la nuit de la Poésie, an excuse for a meal and a booze-up if you ask me. I avoided the poetry bit because, as they say, people who read their own poetry in public may have other nasty habits, but the jazz wasn't half bad. And the meal, if indifferent, was the occasion to meet more people. But I piked out around dessert - no great loss, industrial packs of fruit salad don't really do that much for me - and headed home to some sorely-needed sleep.

Anyway, this lamb is not going to cook itself, so I'd better get busy, I guess. More later, when I no longer have to rely on the vagaries of Bouygues Telecom and an increasingly temperamental phone for my internet access.

30/07/13 at 14:13

Bonus update, also free and totally gratis: WE IS HAS INTERNET AGAIN! So here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Le Chant du Mygale ...

May I suggest that, whenever you really feel like shifting house, you leave it to the professionals? Or perhaps just take a flamethrower to the place and claim the insurance. Just saying. We were "helped" by enthusiastic if somewhat clumsy yoof, and I don't know if that was a good thing or not. To be sure, things eventually wound up in cardboard cartons: many of them were in fact things that we had no intention of taking with us and that were destined, in our minds, for the tip - and of the rest, they were decanted into anonymous boxes that we shall, one day when Bob James the Builder has worked his magic, unpack and say "Oh gosh! Is that where that got to? Shame we bought another one."

Also, 40m3 somewhat underestimates the sheer volume of stuff you can accumulate over 15 years in a 200m² house.

Two vans were not, as it turns out, enough for our needs. Never mind, we got through it without filing for divorce - on to the blow by blow account of the past few weeks of our excellent adventure, heading to points south ...

So after a frenetic weekend's packing what we could into boxes and realising, somewhat belatedly, that we really should have started earlier and perhaps have had more boxes, Monday rolled round, as it will in the natural order of things after a Sunday, and we started loading those two vans and taking stuff for which even we could find no further use off to the dechetterie. Not, sadly, enough, for even as I write we are discovering things that turned up here that we had fondly hoped were gone forever: I guess that Jeremy and his eager friends decided that if it was in the house it might as well go into a truck.

A quick break around 16:30 for a shower and off to the notaire to sign the act and do the deed, after which we were considerably wealthier and, unfortunately, homeless: and as the new owners were turning up up the next day to start demolishing the kitchen (bloody good idea, we'd have done it if we had the money or the skill, Bob'll do it down here) we stuffed the vans, packed the rest into the garage, did a cursory clean of the place just to show willing, and finally, somewhat later than anticipated, turned up at Jacques' place for a rather late dinner and then bed at something like 1:30am Tuesday moaning.

Not the end of it, because later that day, after a totally insufficient amount of sleep, we then drove five hours down south (after picking up the cat) to start doing everything in reverse. Of course the bloody GPS Of Doom did its best to kill us or, failing that, lead us into crooks and nannies where we would be sure to get stuck, like asking us to take these huge vans down a sharp right turn off a street that is, at best, wide enough for one car and a pushbike down into an even narrower alley with overhanging balconies. But we resisted its blandishments and honeyed words, for our faith was strong, and eventually we found a local of whom we could understand three words out of five, and got directions. One day, I swear, that GPS will meet with an Unfortunate Accident.

Unpacking is, as it turns out, a lot quicker than the other thing. Especially as we made the acquaintance of Neville and Reet, whom I suspect of having lurked for at least 50 years, waiting for just such an occasion.In case you're wondering, they both come from the north of England and are consequently, unless you catch them on a good day with the wind in the right direction, totally incomprehensible. Neville is in his seventies, bald and apparently constructed entirely of string and sticks with knobs on the ends, and "enjoys" (without sarcasm, in his case) a 10 km run before breakfast and is thus, in theory, in much better shape than I, were it not for his bad back. Which gives him twinges. His favourite meal, should you wish to know such things, appears to be baked beans. From what he said.

But let it be said, bad back and all, he did sterling service that day, without even being asked, and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have got everything unloaded without his help. Especially as the front door turned out to be too narrow to accept some necessary items, like tables and chairs. Which entailed a 100m dash around and up to the back door which was persuaded, after a bit of demolition work, to open and accept them.

So please, take the time to raise a glass of steaming (I suppose) Newcastle Brown to Neville, who has made us his projet du mois.

Whatever, as everything was going so well, something had, by the laws of narrative wotsit, go titsup. Which it duly did. It was hot as hell at 17:30, we were still busy unloading the first of the vans, and my phone exterminated at me: it was, of course, the banker. Who had just been contacted by the notaire down here to talk about the purchase and such things, and who was shocked to find that we had more than enough in cash to do the deed.

This disturbed her, for the object of the loan was to finance the purchase ... I left her with a promise to get in touch with Maitre Faure to see what could be done, and gloomily contemplated the possibility of not being able to sign the next day, leaving us, Jim, and Celine somewhat in limbo, and them with a houseful of our stuff. Also, they were flying back to the UK the next afternoon ...

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny, and we'd got onto emptying the second van (more of a bitch that one, as things had, towards the end, just been chucked in wholesale) when the phone rang again, the notaire this time, to say that all had been more or less arranged: they were going to pretend that we lacked 40 000€ and, whilst waiting for the bank loan to come through, would loan us that sum, and the banker would pretend to believe them. So that was alright then, I heaved a sigh of relief and carried on heaving furniture with poor Neville wheezing at the other end, and about 13:30 we all five of us crammed ourselves into Peter's Citroen and headed off to Siran to sign the sale.

The presiding notaire is obliged to read the acte de vente, or at least the important bits, and so we learnt that there are no termites, that where we are is not particularly inondable but that there is, it seems, a risk should ever there be a rupture de barrage (a phrase which we were, despite her excellent English, obliged to translate).

So that's alright then.

I suppose that normal people would then have gone and spent their first night in the new home, but we had other plans, and about 21:00 we turned up at Jacques' place again, having dropped one of the vans off at Montmelian, for a slightly earlier dinner than the previous one. Which didn't stop it being marvelous, Jacques seems able to outdo himself each and every time. Did not, unfortunately, profit from the occasion to soak in his spa pool, for an early morning beckoned ...

We duly went in to Chambéry to sign the loan (that we did not, technically speaking, need) with the banker and organise those little things in life that you require when you finally have some spare cash, like credit cards and chequebooks, carpenters and kings, then back to St Pierre to empty the garage into the second van: kind of a bastard 'cos much of it was things stuffed willy-nilly into plastic bags (some of them, to add to the fun, were bursting - thank our overly keen youthful helpers for that) or, failing that, tied up into bundles with string.

And having done that we left again for Moux, Margo driving the van and me bringing up the rear in the Suzy, who was also stuffed to the plimsoll line and then some.

We got in about 23:30 I guess and, too tired to contemplate anything else, fell into bed and slept the sleep of the just (or the terminally exhausted), and left the van to unpack itself. Which it kind of magically did, for on Friday moaning we were back on the road headed north, to drop the van off at Chambéry and for me to do a bit of work at Miqro (yes, my old employer all those years ago). Then we packed even more stuff into Suzy and, its being one of the traditional journées de départ, ate (and drank, sparingly) at our ex-neighbours before going south again at around 21h.

Guess we must have made it back somehow, because I distinctly remember being woken at about 7 by the eccentric carillon on the church right next door, which has an extremely annoying off-tempo 5/7 beat to it: I think that will, at some point, afford me endless hours of pleasure doing ranging practice with the mortar from the terrace. Until of course I manage to score a direct hit, at which point I shall have to find some other source of amusement, such as skeet shooting with the local yoof as targets.

And for the first time in godnose how long we had the day to ourselves, and nothing we actually needed to do in it: only one thing to do in such circumstances, and that is to take a leisurely breakfast out on the terrace and look out over what is now our home. First major decision in our new life: buy a huge parasol.

The house is big and cool and dim and airy, kind of like one of those friendly old English sheepdogs that seem to spend most of their time asleep in the shade, lifting their head to cover you in slobber and wagging a bit for politeness's sake when you come close, before going back to dream about young poodles. I think we may well be happy here, it seems to have adopted us.

Good thing it is cool inside, for even with the gentle breeze that stirs the air a bit and stops it stifling you, the terrace is baking in the afternoon sun. You can understand why even the hordes of cats that seem to be one of the cottage industries around this place spend their time sleeping under the cars, parked à la sauvage around the square. Some things Peter Mayle did get right, about life in small-town southern France. Old stones, baking in the heat under that bright blue provençal sky. And the mosaic of fields, gold and violet with wheat and lavender.

That evening was the fête du village, with fireworks and everything for the 14th of July, and we had reserved tickets (15€ a pop) with Peter. Two little numbered slips of paper were duly slipped into an envelope in the mailbox during the day, and as I was struggling with my cufflinks Margo tactfully reminded me to take my wallet so that we could at least pay for a bottle of wine at the table ...

Need not, as it turned out, have worried. We turned up, decently late, to find the trestle tables set out on the aire de boules groaning under the weight of diverse pizzas and other amuse-gueules, not to mention the array of bottles - white and rosé, dripping with condensation, red, and whisky. Which I carefully avoided, given the heat. So I admired the costumes, which ranged from shorts & sandals (me, but with a black bow tie - have to keep up appearances) to evening dress, and tried to understand the local accent. Not, let it be said, with any great success.

We were introduced to the English community - quite a number, for such a tiny place - which collectively said something along the lines of "Yummy! New toy! New books!" and were then lead off to our places at the long lines of tables equally well-equipped in the alcohol department ie three or four bottles every 50cm to find ourselves seated with the English and other debiles mentales, and then they started serving the food.

So we start off with a slab of foie gras with figs on toasted brioche (lacked a bit of pepper in my opinion, but that's just me) and slowly moved on to the cote de veau and then to the lotte sauce provençale followed by a little sorbet citron with a generous lashing of marc sloshed over it, and every time a bottle emptied another two magically appeared in its place: my wallet stayed in its place, untouched, and about 1am, after the fireworks (which were excellent) had been admired, the kids had been shushed and the dancing had well and truly started, we sloshed sleepily back home, leaving everyone else to it, and slept.

Doesn't end there, 'cos I still had things to do in Chambéry so on Sunday I drove back up and occupied myself with clients and making sure I had all the gear I am going to need, duplicated my laptops, stuff like that. Bit of a b'stard but I might as well get used to it, I guess I'll be headed up for a week or ten days every month for the foreseeable future.

I left there early Saturday morning, way too early like about 5am, hoping to avoid the traffic and above all the heat: it more or less worked until after Valence, where you rejoin the A7 clogged with just about every species known to man heading southwards from Paris, Brussells, Berlin and points further north, drawn irresistably by the siren song of bloody boiling hot moules frites on the sweltering beaches, lying cheek by jowl with their neighbours from whatever shithole city they drove all night to escape from. Oh, and the péage at Montpellier was an absolute arse as well. Unimpressed.

Still, once you get to Montpellier you're only an hour away from here, whipping round Beziers, Narbonne and off towards Toulouse, so I took it quite calmly and drove on ... stopping only at Lésignan to pick up some summer fruit, and some decent meat from a butcher I came across who will cut pork chops to my specifications and who also makes his own sausages, which are really rather bloody good. Now if I could only persuade him to make some lamb sausages I would be in heaven.

Now the fridge stinks of melons, 'cos the primeur at Lésignan-Corbières had a special offer of a tray of twenty of the things for only 10€, and you know me ...

No pictures today because France Telecom won't be sending someone around until the 30th to reconnect the phone, as a result I'm using my mobile as a 3G modem which is all very well, and actually works, but uploading 50Mb of photos is a bit slow. Will do better next time, promise.

Goodbye, hello ...

In just two days we are signing the sale on this place (and, incidentally, packing two huge vans on the same day) before driving down to Moux on the Tuesday to unpack and then sign the purchase (yes, in that order: doesn't seem to worry Celine and Jim that much ... they obviously don't know us very well). At least we have the bank loan (not really necessary, but nice to have), and even an account number so that the notaire can dump vast sums of money into it, hopefully before we empty it all out again.

This afternoon I have two entire rooms to take to the tip, and at some time I need to snag and bag my office, box the wine in the cellar, and shrink-wrap the kitchen. I also have to go up to the office at some point, as the server has gone catatonic.

So until all these things have been done and we are installed in the new Shamblings (same as the old Shamblings, but a bit bigger, and somewhere else, and a different colour, and not at all the same really) there will be a hiatus.

Normal service - or what counts for that around here - will be resumed as soon as possible. Just don't hold your breath, blue is not a natural colour for people.

Bonus update, free gratis and for nothing, that's how much I love you people: I wandered down at 14:00 in the baking 30°+ heat to bring Jacques' Dacia up to the house to be loaded with crap, only to discover that it was making a strange clunky noise ... this happens when the front right tyre is dead flat.

Of course to extract the spare tyre you must more or less lie on your back on the tarmac (no shirt on, ouch! hot! burny!) and then extract the jack and ... what the hell, I shall spare you the sordid details. Suffice it to say that it was a half hour I had not really counted on.

And so now, having worked hard and sweated like pigs, I rather think we is going to have a light meal out on the terrace of steak and salad before heading down to the lake to see the July 14 fireworks, which are on tonight because here at St Pierre we have, being skinflint peasants, worked out that it is cheaper to buy the things after the correct date and then stick them in someone's cellar until the DLC comes around and they're covered in greenish fuzz, at which point you fire them off at all and sundry.

The colours are wonderful, even if not perhaps what the makers intended, due to the pig dripping, and some have been known to go off at random moments and not necessarily as required, but that just adds to the fun. And let's face it, handless municipal employees will not be skimming any money from the tills, now will they?

Also, for your reading pleasure, In a development whose scientific importance would be difficult to exaggerate, it has been discovered that hawk moths emit powerful ultrasonic pulse beams from their genitals

Après le Deluge ...

Oddly enough, Saturday seemed calmer than usual in old Chambéry. A few shopkeepers redistributing stuff I didn't care to inspect too closely about the pavement in front of their shops, bar-owners blearily - and rather optimistically, I thought, mistakenly as it turned out - setting out seats and tables, and rather fewer people than usual at the market.

But it was a beautiful day, and little by little people started crawling out from under rocks or wherever it was they'd gone off to hide and sleep off the hangovers and forget all the highly embarrassing things that had gone on the previous night (it was, after all, Midsummer's Eve so a little bucolic excess is only natural, just avoid coupling with some guy with an ass's head is all I'm saying and that means you, Beckham) and the tables started to fill as bums got parked on chairs and the sky stayed obstinately bright and blue and furtive smiles scurried hastily across the faces of the bartenders as the cash registers went "Ka-ching!".

And the municipal employees were out in force, dismantling the stages and carting away the piles of rubbish (much of it hardly struggling at all) and generally cleaning up and hosing the last few drunks down the gutters, so that for once the place was sparkly clean for the sun.

I guess that everyone thought it was summer, after all, so even the small kids were out, dressed to the nines and being relatively well-behaved - as tends to happen here, on pain of pain - and playing at doctors and nurses up on the steps of the mairie whilst their parents relaxed under the parasols at le Refuge and the execrable Pierre proceeded majestically about, like a miniaturised galleon under sail, ensuring that the service was down to his usual low standards.

Incidentally, I think that one of his more impecunious clients must have made a deal at some point in the recent past to pay off his bar tab with straw hats which had, through a chain of circumstances too convoluted to go into in detail here, just happened to have come into his possession. It is the only reason I can think of - general French bad taste notwithstanding, not even Pierre is sufficiently stony-hearted to think that they are not sartorially challenged, and in any case I suspect he wouldn't actually dream of paying for them - why they have become part of the uniform of the serveurs.

I only say "serveur" from habit, and because I rather think it's part of the job description. In this universe, they are highly trained in the skills of not, in fact, serving anyone if that is at all possible. Oh, they wander around and if by some miracle you manage to catch their eye (I personally find proficiency at casting with a dry-fly rod to be an advantage here, doubtless hurts like hell but does rather draw attention) they will grudgingly take your order, but half an hour later as you stumble off, dehydrated, in search of a muddy puddle, you can see them standing about the bar, drinking and laughing merrily as they tell tall tales about the family at table 13, who've been there waiting for their kirs and a little grenadine for the kid since 1978.

But Saturday was Dumpster Day for us though, so when I got back we loaded up little Suzy and headed off to the dechetterie. Recycling and sorting your rubbish is a big thing in Ole Yurrup in general, and in our little corner of it in particular, and I was kind of apprehensive as the tip at St Pierre used to be presided over by a family of unreformed Nazis that always reminded me of particularly nasty Steptoes, only with exoskeletons, who would come all ironic on you if you so much as put red paper in the white paper bin. And if irony proved to be of no effect, brass knuckles always seemed to be an unspoken option.

But it seems they were pushed out for skimming off the top, selling some of the junk off and pocketing the proceeds. Where there's muck there's brass, as they say, and it seems that some people will happily pay for what others will pay to get rid of. I suppose that's called arbitrage, but small-minded nitpickers pointed out that technically speaking it's called theft, the rubbish in question not in fact being theirs to sell, and anyway naked capitalism offends (especially when its breasts are clearly visible) and so the municipality was obliged to Take Certain Steps.

So anyway, now there's a charming young woman who, when we explained our needs and the great variety of stuff we were getting rid of, inspected our bags and boxes and pointed us in the right directions. I still think you really need an advanced degree in sorting, with an option in the recognition of the various types of plastic so as to be able to put Barbies in one benne and Coke bottles in another, in order to do the job properly.

And of course there's always one, isn't there, the sort of chap who sits down every other night with a warm feeling of smug self-righteous ignorance to write Stern Letters to the editor of the local rag commenting on the depravity of the yoof, the disappearance of public morals and the general laxity of standards and lack of respect for elders today, who felt that, given as the afore-mentioned tribe of foul-tempered crustaceans was no longer there there to do it, he really needed to criticize us for putting, as per instructions received, paper into the container clearly marked "carton".

Not feeling up to a bit of impromptu liver excision without the benefit of anaesthesia, especially given the heat, I let it go. And as I don't actually read the Dauphiné, I guess I shall be spared his latest missive, pointing out how the fabric of civilisation is being undermined by the short-sighted policy of this government in letting foreigners - even if they are non-black not that he's got anything against Arabs or Africans apart from their skin colour, unsanitary food and general appearance mind you, not racist at all - come into decent society and blithely get rid of their smelly alien rubbish without first removing the paper-clips.

Bit of a shame really, it could be rather fun to learn exactly how I am contributing to the moral decline of this great country by not filing garbage correctly, but quite frankly I really cannot be arsed. Which I suppose is just another sign of my inner turpitude. Too bad.

Next Sunday, should it by some unlucky chance turn out fine, it's open house/paddock here at The Shamblings so that people can come around to see us off with barely-restrained bleats of joy (that is not the title of a soft-core porn movie, by the way: I checked that out, just in case there were copyright issues), and to eye up the loose silverware. Which is not enough for some, so we've had some lunch invitations, one of which we took up on Sunday.

I'd rather forgotten the traditional French Sunday lunch. Five hours from whoa to go, and enough food for a small army. I can no longer really do that, around here it's every humanoid for themselves and the first one to get a sandwich ready leaves room for the others: I find I end up rather bloated. And that's after politely refusing second helpings of everything.

Anyway, things are hotting up around here. As our departure plans were rather put on hold by this préemption business we were unable to confirm a booking for our friendly local démenageurs, who were to have come in and emptied the place whilst we stood by in awe and watched, and shifted its contents down south to general applause: of course now, it being the busy season, they have reluctantly turned down our offer to honour them with our custom, so we're on our own.

This is what we call in the trade a right bugger, as it's going to mean renting two 20 cubic metre vans, boxing and loading the house, driving down and repeating the process in reverse, and then getting the damned things back here. All in the space of three or four days. The prospect is leading to palpitations and fainting spells: I'm sure we'll manage, more or less, but it will be one hell of a hectic weekend.

Also, the home phone and my personal emails got cut off today. As I started to find out when I came to send a mail off using the Orange SMTP server, and kept getting notifications that it had refused my login credentials. And then Margo rang, to say that the home phone wasn't working ...

Bugger it, I thought, this is going to mean a while on the phone with customer service ... I realised that things were perhaps a little more complicated than that when I dialled 1016, punched in our phone number, and got a recorded message telling me that the phone had been cut off for non-payment. Kind of odd, given that the bills arrive at the office.

I eventually got put through to a human being, who told me that yes, we hadn't paid our last bill, for some 660€ and which should have been paid two weeks ago: knowing full well that the monthly rental for the Livebox etc is only 60€ or thereabouts, this kind of surprised me. What surprised me even more was the fact that I couldn't find the bill - any Orange bill, in fact - in the accounts. So I got put through, after five minutes of the usual ghastly music and incitements to spend more on their services, to someone in billing.

Who kindly explained that "yes, the bill might seem a bit high, but you must realise, Monsieur, that we haven't actually sent you a bill since last August".

And may I ask just why that would be? Sheer laziness on your part, or something more sinister?

Ah, un glitch informatique de notre part ...

Then it seems to me, I said, very carefully picking my words and trying hard not to kill anyone or yell, rather unreasonable to cut off service for non-payment of bills which have not, by your own admission, been sent out. For God's sake!

Oui, mais vous comprenez, monsieur, vous les n'avez pas payées, ces factures, alors nous sommes obligés de vous couper. Vous pouvez la regler en ligne, vous savez ...

But you have killed my Internet, and I DO NOT HAVE YOUR FRIKKING FACTURE!

Eh bien je ne peux rien faire monsieur, je vous mettrai en rélation avec les services de recouvrement ...

And after five minutes of more dire music, the line goes dead as they guy at the other end "accidentally" hangs up.

So I call back and, very wearily, explain the situation yet again - had I mentioned that I had already been obliged to explain three times? thought not - and because I was feeling feeble and really do not need to have a heart attack at this time, agreed to pay by carte bleue on the spot in the hope that normal service would be resumed as soon as possible. Three hours later this has still not happened, good thing I wasn't holding my breath.

And it does, I admit, seem a wee bit pointless given that in ten days I will be having the phone cut off here anyway, but we cannot live without internet and mail access so what choice do I have? Whatever.

In The Quiet Light ...

So it's the middle of a baking hot Friday afternoon, and you can tell that summer is coming because, like dogs panting in what little shade there is, even the telemarketers don't seem to have their hearts in it.

I mean, they ring, I am put on hold because, I am told, there is "un message important à votre attention" and then some poor Indian flunky takes the line and asks to speak to the directeur de telecommunications: I say it's me, for my sins, and that we have both a telephone - which, I admit, works only when it feels like it - and a backup in the form of a tin can with some string attached, they just sigh briefly and say je comprends and don't even protest feebly when I hang up and - for safety's sake - cut the string. Note to self: buy another ball of ficelle de cuisine.

It is also June 21 which is, by decree of Jack Lang all those years ago, la fête de la musique which means that all sort of unsavoury noises will be committed tonight and, exceptionally, it looks as though it may not rain. Which I suppose means that there will be rather fewer deaths by drowning of tuba players noted in the local rag of record (Le Dauphiné Libéré, if you really want to know: a definitive guide to what's going on in St-Jean le Trou-du-Cul and other microscopic holes of no importance whatsoever - usually nothing at all, truth to tell, apart from a stabbing at the local crochet club - and their write-ups of the breath-taking suspense at the shuffleboard tournaments at Aix are fascinating for those interested in the sport), which is kind of a shame because that was always good for a laugh.

Still, if you are going to be remembered for something, I guess I'd rather be remembered for having impeccably cut suits, Bohemian good looks, having it off on the side with Mitterand's wife and, as a sort of afterthought, inventing a summer's night holiday with free music for all. Especially if the alternative is being ridiculed unto the end of time like Jack Allgood (sorry, Jacques Toubon) who, as minister of Culture and evidently under the influence of too much Chirac and not enough brain cells, famously tried to excise the English bits from French.

Leading to such hilarious results as "coussin gonflable de sécurité" (airbag), "courrier éléctronique", later shortened to "courriel" (e-mail) and also "baladeur portatif" (Walkman) which kind of sounds to me as though you're walking around with a very small troubadour hanging off your belt.

When you think about it, the whole idea of free music is not bad. Some of it you wouldn't actually pay to listen to anyway, but it does keep the yoof on the streets where the gendarmerie can see them, and if they feel it necessary go ask a few questions about unsolved petty crimes which, I rather feel, will be classed as "Closed" Real Soon Now. Yes, there are Arab musicians too, and in any case many of them are young, and thus automatically guilty of something, for godssake. It's a win-win situation.

But who knows, maybe I'll head into Chambéry and stroll about a bit, see - or hear, more to the point - what young Rémi can get up to on the guitar on the heavy metal stage at Curial, then head off to the Vestiaire at Challes for some 70's music, with Renaud on drums.

Whatever, we got word yesterday that the droit de péremption of which I spoke will not, it seems, be exercised and so we are authorised to sell our green and pleasant land along with the house, which means that the buyers cannot pull out of it. Which is just as well, as we have received word that the CIC will lend us the miserable 70 000€ that we asked for, so that we can in fact pay very comfortably for the place in Moux. With heaps left over, even after Bob (sorry, James, just slipped out) has done those things that need doing.

Which means that things are shifting up a couple of gears, we are getting ready to chuck Jeremy out, get power and water cut off, insurance and phone transferred, godnose what else, I have a list but I'm sure I'll have missed something, and tomorrow is going to be a journée déchetterie taking old computers, useless hardware, cardboard boxes of stuff and whatever else we can find down to the tip. That will be fun.

Also means that last night we girded our loins and took the long-arm sewing machine back to la baronne, at Belleville. This involves a van with a cargo capacity of at least 4.30 m length (the one Margo managed to get was shy of that by a bit, so the trip there was with the rear doors held as tightly closed as possible with bungees and straps), a lot of sweat, and some lost skin.

The things are not particularly complicated, they're just enormous great X-Y plotting tables, but they seem to have been made by a farrier back in the late 1800s and their individual components each weigh somewhere up of half a ton. And of course, it resided on the first floor and we didn't really want to break any more walls, so there was quite a bit of back and forth shuffling in a humourous manner with occasional swearing until we could actually get these 4.3m hunks of metal out the window and onto the street. Good thing Jeremy was there to give us a hand with the heavy lifting.

Now Belleville is north of Lyon, and although we left somewhat later than planned we were doing pretty well until we got onto the rocade est to whip around the pestilential place only to discover that the autoroute was closed and that we were being directed onto a déviation towards Villefranche.

Which was more or less where we wanted to go, or at least in the general direction, so we followed it ... and after an hour or so, more or less, we got gently shuffled back on to the autoroute, about 15 minutes up the road from where we got off, and went on our merry way - still, we got to see the river. Which is actually quite pretty, especially with the sun setting low over it, and the streaks of clouds limned in gold and apricot hanging in the sky. Bitch when it's in your eyes as you drive, mind you.

Whatever, about an hour later than planned - if you can use that word for what could better be described as a pious hope - we made it to Belleville and, not having the Deathwish GPS with us we found Pascale's place without too many problems and started unloading.

Had I had the forethought to do so I suppose I could have nicked borrowed the Riddled time machine, set it for four hours earlier and then played it back in reverse: that would have effectively reduced the effort involved to zero as the inverted time fluxes cancelled one another out, leaving only a huge sewing machine that was suddenly somewhere else, a few inexplicable skinned knuckles and a two-hour gap in the fabric of space-time to be explained away should any short-arsed officious bugger from the auditing office turn up with his clip-board asking questions.

And I think I could probably just have bogged up the hole with a bit of quick-drying cement and covered it with some grubby sacking, then stuck a "Wet Paint" sign on it and no-one would have been the wiser.

Unfortunately, seems the thing was in use that day (that was their excuse anyway, when you think about it, given the nature of the beast nothing would have stopped me borrowing it at some indeterminate point in the future - or the past - and doing the job then), also they go on and on patronisingly about temporal paradoxes bring too complicated for the uninitiated and are incredibly stingy and tight-fisted about lending stuff out, even to the extent of expecting people to ask first. So we did it the hard way.

As it turns out, in some sort of offence against the natural order of things we did not have the expected torrential downpour Friday night. So it was almost with pleasure that I picked Jerry up from the hotel as he fulminated about the couple of English people who'd decided to have a meal at the very last minute and then dallied over it asking silly questions about what to do with the little black balls in garlic butter, and what this that or the other sauce was called and why so he had to stand about after getting it ready and answer, and took him in to Chambéry where he gravitated immediately to the death metal and occupied himself with some serious head-banging.

Not really my thing, so I ambled off and found a group that was doing some pretty good covers of Nirvana, pelted a few percussionists and fled the folk dances before somehow winding up at the Beer Tree where I found myself with a glass of Laphroaig in one paw, and a bit of relative peace and quiet in which to occupy myself with it.

I can think of worse ways to finish a week.

More About Buildings And Food ...

One thing I did forget to mention as I went on about the health & safety regulations to which we shall be required to adhere, and which left me with a totally ghasted flabber: unusually - I will resist the urge to say uniquely - for France, they are not prescriptive. Under other circumstances they would be highly detailed, setting out the required methodology - concerning traçabilité, say, they would specify a minimum size for your receipts, which would have to be stapled (9mm staples only) to pale yellow bristol, one receipt per sheet and then kept, in date order, in a vertical filing cabinet.

And provided you followed the rules it wouldn't matter if you were unable to demonstrate that on such and such a day you had fed (or not, as the case may be) two kilos of scrapies-ridden beef brain to your clients, because you'd done what was set out.

Where are my eyes?

No, these rules just define the result that is required, and how you go about it is totally up to you. If you feel like taking photos of the receipts with your phone and then attaching them to a spreadsheet cell which you've organised by supplier's hair colour you are free to do so. I must admit that kind of shocked me, it is so very un-French.

And even the knowledge that the regulations are not in fact French, but EU directives, does not diminish my wonder one whit, because that means that they were established by a committee, each member of which is jealously fighting his or her own corner and defending the right of their peasantry to scour out the butter churns with pig's urine, as is traditional and right.

This is NOT an argument

I personally find that selling your house is a learning experience in and of itself. Case in point: the incompetence of banks, the magnitude of which never ceases to leave me feeling like a stunned mullet, haplessly gasping for air. I would have greatly preferred to slit my own throat with a rusty hair-pin rather than go back to the Credit Agricole for a house loan, so I trotted around a couple of banks.

This may seem odd, but even national banks - like BNP and Société Genérale - still want you to take out your loan with a branch in the place where you're buying. I mean, what the hell is going on here? I'm pretty sure it isn't done for my convenience.

So anyway, I went off to see the CIC, aka Lyonnaise de Banque, who have the privilege of handling Upstart's banking needs, and explained the situation to them. As I had rather hoped, as the business itself is not shifting they agreed to handle the loan from here, which kind of avoids some otherwise unnecessary trips down south. So far so good, but I suspect that the very idea that this was possible raised false hopes.

Fear not, French banks are as incompetent as ever. I asked for a loan, 70 000€ over ten years, and for some strange reason they sent a first proposition for a seven-year term: interesting, no doubt, as it involves no mortgage and can be repaid early without penalty, but neither of us want to be shelling out 900€/month if we can possibly avoid it.

Then we got scary health questionnaires ("have you, or any family members, ever been insane?"), which we filled in with the usual lies, and there also arrived a copy of the actual loan offer - a proper official document, with places to sign and everything. Sad to say, it was not for us - I thought that was a tad too quick - but at least I now know in some detail the financial state of M et Mme Goudejan. Fascinating stuff.

And while all this is going on, we - or more to the point, Margo - are/is trying to organise movers, for at our age there is no way we is going to even contemplate the idea of loading all our junk into and on top of and trailing behind little Suzy, and getting it down there. No, we are actually going to pay professionals to do all that. But we do need dates for that, and as we can't really sign for Moux until we've signed the sale for here, I was kind of perturbed to learn that we are, in fact, subject to péremption.

This is not quite as filthy as it sounds, all it fact means is that as we are landed gentry with our rolling acres of agricultural terrain, first the mairie and them some other organisation of which I've never heard get dibs on it. Of course, if they decide that they do in fact want it this is considered sufficient reason for the buyers to back out, so the sale cannot go through until both have said "non!".

Now the mairie, who gets first choice, said that fairly early on in the piece, at which point the notaire was allowed to send the dossier off to the second lot. They received that on May 27 and, by virtue of article 37 of the code d'urbanisme or something, have two months in which to reply. So given that they have the sale habitude of not in fact replying if they don't want to grab the land, this could push the signing date back to July 28: the point is that we don't actually know.

Which is a right bitch, not to mention a pain in the arse. There is - this is France, as I keep reminding you - a way to - perhaps - speed up the process: if you send them a cheque for 150€ they guarantee to think really seriously about really replying in three weeks, retroactively, from the date of reception of the dossier. Which sounds kind of time-fuddling to me, but what would I know?

Our buyers are also in a hurry, so they apparently stumped up a cheque which got sent off to the notaire who must then transmit this through to the organisme in question (for you cannot send it off directly, this would be cutting out the middle-man and also against nature) and then ring someone there, hoping to extract a promise that we will get our answer Real Soon Now. Whilst we wait, we're rather in limbo, and it's highly annoying because we cannot set a firm date for signing in Moux or shifting or anything.

Suppose I'd better send a mail off to Peter telling him to let Jim and Celine know that their plans to pop over from England on or about the 12th need to be put on hold. Bugger.

Still, on the bright side, I feel that I have done something useful and Good with my otherwise dissolute life, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks to my entertaining her with Uplifting and Informative Nature Tales, adapted slightly from the truth in order to fit the requirements of a younger audience, little Elise next door can now regale me with stories about the "horrible snails, that crawl in your ears and EAT YOUR BRAIN from the inside".

Anyway, one thing I don't do often enough is read James Beard. Come to that, I don't read Julia Child as often as I should, but there you go. I am reminded of this because Margo was off at a salon at La Roche sur Foron, and the SNCF was on strike (or, as they prefer to put it, une journée nationale de solidarité et d'action sociale, take your pick), so I wound up spending the night, carless and careless, on the spare bed at Stacey's, and she just happens to have a copy of "The Theory and Practice Of Good Cooking", by the aforementioned Mr. Beard.

So, having nowt better to do, I picked it up and read it, cover to cover. I knew the name, of course: doyen of American cooking back in the 60s and 70s, a cook for whom I have great respect, and also a wonderful writer, about food and maybe other subjects, I do not know. But honestly, who else could talk - with a straight face - about a "blessing of salt and pepper"?

Or, come to that, the "quick hot kiss of butter"? Also, in the section of that book devoted to sautés in their myriad and delicious forms, he bemoans the falling of boeuf Stroganoff: "bastardised", as he so elegantly puts it, "into a stew".

And if you're looking for some good paternal advice, he has this to say: "with braised veal, buttered noodles are good, and you may have green beans. Drink a Beaujolais". Sounds good to me. A man who loved food, and who let it show. Even to the point of criticising the "current French tendency" to cook everything in vinegar: mea culpa, for I do love chicken cooked that way, but I can see his point. Can easily be overdone, and not necessarily something you want every night.

Which may explain why, tonight, after a white-hot day, I decided on a simple warm potato salad: rougette leaves dried and set out on a plate, mustard, honey and olive oil whipped until senseless with a spoon in a bowl before adding lashings of chives and mint and cornichons, then pouring in the cubed steamed potatoes and sliced spring onions and some sweetcorn, stirring well with cider vinegar, and ladling the lot over the lettuce.

At which point some chopped hard-boiled eggs could usefully be added, and if you happen to have some decent bacon you could fry that up and crumble it in too, deglazing the pan with vinegar which could be used on the potatoes. Just saying.

Whatever, I should probably go to bed now as the week is calling: shall just leave you with another of Chairman Beard's great thoughts, on kohlrabi: "sometimes called cabbage turnip, but with the virtues of neither". I really like that man. As for you lot, mind how you go, now.

Broadening My Mind ...

So the pair of us headed off this moaning to Albertville, for a half-day course to learn about food hygiene and stuff. First of all, a word to the wise: should ever, through some odd turn of fate or twist of circumstance, you find yourself at the Chambre des Metiers et des Artisans at Albertville and dying for a coffee, resist the urge to go get one from the vending machine. The word "unpalatable" does not begin to do it justice: "toxic" does it for me but is quite likely actionable, given that I don't think anyone has actually died from inhaling the stuff, although I can't imagine how not. Maybe they hushed it up.

Go out the front door, across the road, turn left and pop into a bar. It'll cost more, but it will probably be drinkable.

Anyway, back to this course ... mainly to let you know what you're up for. Somewhat to my surprise, the legislation concerning tables d'hote is nearly as draconian as that covering restaurants. Fair enough, up to a point: giving people food poisoning is a serious matter and not one to be undertaken lightly, nor to be left to amateurs, but still the whole concept of table d'hote is that you invite people into your house and feed them a typical, preferable regional, meal, as though they were friends or family that had just popped in and managed to invite themselves for lunch by the simple expedient of parking themselves at the table and refusing to budge.

So although you can invite all the family around for Christmas day or Aunt Gladys' birthday and cunningly slip salmonella into the tuna salad without so much as a harsh word being said, let alone inspectors from the service veterinaire coming round to make rude and sometimes pointedly harsh remarks, if you're feeding three strangers for cash things get more complicated. What did you expect? This is France.

I will pass on the aspect traçabilité, where you are expected to be able to show origin, date of purchase and date of use of all animal products consumed over the past six months, and just quickly fulminate on the requirements for the kitchen. Floors, walls and work surfaces must be of such materials as are "easily cleaned". The use of wood (chopping blocks etc) is totally verboten. There must be a separate hand-basin, with foot controls, for the washing of hands, something to be done every time you pick your nose. The different matières premières (meat, vegetables, dairy products ...) must be stored on separate shelves in the fridge ...

I swear, if the same rules were to be applied, as reasonably they should, to any home kitchen that occasionally caters to more than two adults, a kid or two, and the odd cat, no-one in France would bother cooking. Just have a microwave, and live on frozen pizza. Mind you, that is happening. Sadly.

Still, at least I now know that salmonella is completely exterminated once the internal temperature gets up over 63°C, also - and rather more disturbing - that listeria actually prefers to have it off at 4°, and is a frequent unwanted visitor in fridges.

Also, that we shall have to get a Licence II in order to be able to serve fermented, non-distilled alcoholic beverages: this is free on demand at the local mairie, but you do have to undergo a 700€ course on road safety or something beforehand. There had to be some way they were going to get money out of it.

It's a slow day right now, so get yourselves ready for the Peculiar Case of the Cheese-grater in the Evening. As Watson would have said. No baying hell-hounds, no blood smeared on the walls, nor a peg-legged sailor with a cleft palette, just a cheese-grater that should have been there, but wasn't.

Anyway, it was not upon a dreary winter's day under a dismal London pea-souper that I turned up to call upon my friend Mr. Holmes of Baker Street, but rather last Tuesday evening, when it was in fact quite fine and sunny, and to be totally honest I had just arrived home, had no intention of calling on the great detective, and in fact never did so. His services turned out to be unnecessary, just as well really for I don't actually know the guy, and given the situation he might well have insisted on payment in advance.

To be clear on the circumstances of the case: finding myself with nowt but mince in the fridge, it seemed obvious that Italian-style meatballs, with a hint of lemon, in a rich tomato sauce would make a suitable light dinner, accompanied by buttered pasta, as is our wont.

Now pasta has, of course, one drawback: our Mediterranean friends have not yet devised a way of getting cheese into it. So grated cheese on top - parmigiano reggiano or, if you prefer, a dried Sardinian cheese - is more or less mandatory. And as the meatballs simmered away in their lascivious sauce, and the spaghetti went al dente, it came time to prepare the garnish.

Cry havoc! and let loose the Spanish Inquisition, for no cheese-grater was to be found. Baffled we were not, for we knew that Jeremy had prepared pasta for his party on Sunday night: the answer was obviously that the article in question is not actually missing as such, just poorly filed. So we inspected all the kitchen cupboards - yes, all of them, even those that are not, technically speaking, actually in the kitchen, not in this time zone anyway - and when that turned out to be fruitless, we ransacked the pantry.

Jeremy had his party in the cellar? Let us process down, holding torches (for it was getting dark) and clutching the life-preservers in our ulster pockets (what the hell are those, anyway? Life-preservers, I mean. You are seriously trying to tell me that Sherlock Holmes wandered about at all times with an inflatable dinghy in his pocket?), to check the contents of the cellar. Many interesting things are there, but apparently innocent of any trace of a cheese-grater.

It is not, of course, impossible, that he should have taken it up to his room: there are coffee mugs - and coffee dregs - in there that first saw the light of day in the last century: with some trepidation we opened the door and inspected the sordid den of iniquity. As dennish, and as iniquitous, as one could wish, but Still No Frikking Cheese-Grater.

At which point, dinner being about ready, we resorted to shaving slivers off the cheese with a sturdy knife and - none the worse for it, let it be admitted - sat down to our humble meal. But not without a certain inquietude: it is not an easy thing to eat with a tranquil spirit knowing that your cheese-grater has suddenly and inexplicably vanished. What sort of madman enters one's house and makes off with a cheese-grater, leaving behind the cheese?

Be reassured, there is a happy ending. Jeremy himself arrived, around 23:00, and I subtly questioned him on the matter ...

"Jeremy! Where the hell's the cheese-grater?"
"What, that? Oh yes, here it is in my backpack. Got a call, took it to work in the morning."

Could someone please tell me what type of restaurant it is that does not have a cheese-grater to call its own? Apparently, one where the chef does not believe in the utility of such instruments, and will not have one in the drawer. Or perhaps he had an unfortunate experience as a child, I do not really wish to know.

Now our eldest son would, he claims, normally have left a note explaining that the cheese-grater had neither absconded nor been kidnapped: but as he planned on being home at midday, long after it would no longer have been needed, he thought that superfluous. Which just goes to show, because at midday he got sent off to Metro, the big professional discount shop, with the company card, a blank cheque and instructions to buy, amongst other things, a cheese-grater.

A little something for the weekend: I was driving up the hill from the centre of town back up to the office the other day, having taken advantage of the sun to perform my mid-week libations at the Beer Tree, and found myself behind a big ute that, judging from the rakes, brooms and assorted lawn-mowers, belonged to one of those helpful people that do gardening for money.

This turned out indeed to be the case: when I got close enough to read the sign it mentioned "entreprise de jardinage", so spot on there, what I had not expected was the rather unfortunate - to my way of thinking, anyway - name of the owner, M. Ratpatron.

Inexplicably, it dawned fine and sunny this morning, so despite my innate skepticism I tootled off to the market in a relatively good mood, ready for all that life might throw at me. On condition that that was buckets of cherries, say.

Anyway the fresh herbs are now out there in great handfuls so I stocked up on chives and parsley for the freezer, and a huge bunch of basil for which I shall  have to think of some use, and they all went in with the rougette atop the apricots and flat Italian white peaches (some of which are destined for a peach crisp, I think) and stuff, and then wandered vaguely back to head office to meet up with the infamous Bs and check up on the rosé.

Somewhat to my surprise Beckham was actually there more or less at the appointed hour, not having managed to pull anyone the previous night, and then Bryan shuffled up on his zimmer frame a bit later, so we ordered something healthy and restorative and sat in the sun watching things happen and talking, and the conversation turned, as it will, to pederast necrophile ducks and then, logically enough, to the cruelty of killing off - or at least seriously reducing the numbers of - the pigeons that infest Chambéry.

At least, Beckham seemed to think it was cruel: Bryan quite reasonably pointed out that they'd tried contraception and that hadn't worked, and I'm sad to say that my contribution to the train of thought was simply that the problem with that was not only finding enough people to put the tiny rubbers on their little columban willies, but also having them be in the right place at the right time.

And at that point the meeting broke up in some disorder as we all thought of things we really ought to be doing, and headed off to enjoy the fleeting sunshine before the thunderheads rolled in.